DESCRIPTION: (Adapted from Applicant s Abstract) In addition to providing a first line of defense against pathogens, innate immunity plays a critical role in controlling and instructing adaptive immunity. Although this novel idea has been greatly promoted by a series of reviews, news and views, and research articles in journals like Nature, Science, and Current Opinion in Immunology in the past few years, this is only the second meeting that will be entirely devoted to this cross-talk between the two evolutionarily distinct forms of immunity, and its major implications in the fields of host defense, tumor immunology, autoimmunity and vaccine development (the first meeting was held in 1997). The meeting will highlight the new frontiers of research on the cells, receptors, and signal transduction pathways that mediate innate immunity and control adaptive immunity. A multidisciplinary group of researchers, including molecular biologists, biochemists, and cellular immunologists, is invited to discuss emerging concepts, novel technologies, and new avenues of research opening up for students and postdoctoral fellows in search of opportunities for future research and challenges.